Born in Portugal in 1935, José Luandino Vieira's parents immigrated to Angola in 1938. Vieira grew up immersed in the language and the culture of the black quarters of Luanda, Angola's capital. He was so influenced by these experiences that later in life he wrote in a language unique to the black quarters: a fusion of Kimbundu (one of Angola's native languages) and Portuguese.
Vieira devoted himself to Angolan independence from Portugal. In 1961, he revealed a secret list of deserters from the Portuguese army to the BBC and was arrested and imprisoned for eleven years. It's sad to think that so many Angolans gave their lives for the realization of Angola's independence in 1975 (which is what the book is about), only to have the country enter a civil war that only recently ended in 2002.
The Real Life of Domingos Xavier (Angola):
This was quite an interesting book. It was about a land so far away that I have not been to yet. A land I knew very little about (until recently); a land I never thought about before. But the connection I made to Angola through this book went deeper than I expected. The similarities to South Africa's history are so uncanny.
"The Real Life of Domingos Xavier" is an ode to all the freedom fighters who made the ultimate sacrifice for Angola's independence. Domingos Xavier represents freedom fighters who were detained by the authorities, tortured, violated and eventually killed. The colonial police come to Domingos Xavier's house and arrest him in the dead of night. The book lays bare Domingos Xavier's torture by the white Portuguese colonial police and the cipaios (Africans recruited to serve in subordinate roles in the colonial police). He is beaten to the point where his eyes become so swollen he is unable to see through them. His wife Maria is sent around by the authorities from one office to the next, each official claiming to have no knowledge of her husband's arrest. These portrayals of Domingos and Maria's torture are inter-spaced by the underground freedom fighters outside jail trying to identify the prisoner that was paraded in the township by the police to curb political dissident.
Vieira succeeded in making me feel a lot of suspense. I found myself telling the characters not to speak to loudly about what they were planning because you never know who is listening. In fact, on two or three occasions I found myself going back on a page to make sure no one was near the characters who might report them to the police. When a scene included the characters of Mussanda, Chico, Grandad Patelo and Young Zito, I would be on edge the entire time, fearing an arrest was imminent.
There is an incident in Domingos Xavier's torture where the white colonial police officer offers him a sandwich and a beer having subjected him to beatings on previous days. This incident made me thing back to a book I read last year: Jacob Dlamini's "Askari". This book was about (among other things) an examination of the circumstances that lead some freedom fighters during Apartheid in South Africa to betray and continue to betray many of their comrades.
I think this idea of betraying your people still happens today. Where you have political leaders choosing the lavish lifestyle that money and other benefits will afford them as a result of bribes and other corrupt actions. This can further be extended to ordinary Africans choosing to participate in a systems and institutions that continue to oppress us today, naively believing that if we work hard enough, we can carve a seat for ourselves at the table, not realizing that for every one of us that makes it in the corporate world (for example) there are millions of us that continue to live under these oppressive institutions that were never created for the improvement of our lives as black people.
Domingos Xavier still refuses to betray his people even after he is promised the sandwich and beer and his "freedom". How many of us continue to accept the sandwich and beer and a false sense of freedom just so we can live a more lavish lifestyle than the next person, while betraying our sisters and brothers in the process?
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